Desert father | Poemen the GreatНамуна

Crying Out Loud

A brother once asked Abba Poimēn: ‘What to do with my sins?’ Abba Poimēn spoke to him: ‘If you wish to purify your faults, wash them with tears; and if you wish to acquire virtues, acquire them with tears. Weeping is the way, told by the Scriptures and the Fathers. ‘Weep!’ they say, ‘truly, there is no other way than this.' 

Poimēn of Sketis

‘Weeping is the way to God,’ is a particularly memorable saying from the desert father, Poimēn. He is not saying that tears and weeping are essential in themselves: that attitude will bring little good. No, it should be focused on a godly sorrow leading to repentance. In the Bible, this is called a ‘sorrow-leading salvation' (2 Corinthians 7:10). The Desert Fathers also have a beautiful expression for this: ‘joy-bearing grief'. But how, you may ask yourself: 'How can joy be born from sadness?’

Father Poimēn uses the image of sins as filth, a very biblical image, where one speaks of the cleansing of sins (2 Corinthians 7:1). Poimēn advises us to wash away this sin-filth with tears. It is a beautiful pastoral image that suits the character of Poimēn, a name that means 'shepherd'. It is a loving image explaining our cooperation with God: we sacrifice our tears and He gives them cleansing-power to wash away our sins. The psalmist David also spoke of this power of repentance when he wrote: 

‘My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise’ (Psalm 51:17). 

Tears can lead us to God's joy. The joy of His comfort, forgiveness, and sanctification. So don't be ashamed of your tears. When you cry, you're in good company. Job looked at God through his tears (Job 16:20), Christ prayed with tears and supplications (Hebrews 5:7) and David's tears were so precious that God counted them one by one (Psalms 56:8). Do not fear the tears of your weakness, they are the way to the God of love.